"Bull" Burrows joined the club in 1945 and worked as vice-president of the club (source: Len Perkins, August 2002).  His son Bruce was a player.

From the Australian Dictionary of Biographies 1940-1980

  BURROWS, FREDERICK ALEXANDER (1897-1973), army officer and businessman, was born on 10 November 1897 at Wahgunyah, Victoria, second child of Frederick Burrows, labourer, and his wife Hester, née Nugent, both Victorian born. Educated at Cobar and Corowa public schools, New South Wales, young Burrows added one year to his age and described himself as a 'grocer's assistant' when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 28 April 1915. He embarked for Egypt in July and served briefly on Gallipoli with the 7th Battalion.

  In March 1916 Burrows reached France where he was wounded at Poziéres in July and promoted sergeant in October. At Lihons on. 11 August 1918 he led a bombing party which cleared an enemy trench; for his action he was awarded the Military Medal. That month he was again wounded, evacuated to England and commissioned.

  He returned to Australia in May 1919 as a lieutenant and his A.I.F. appointment terminated on 6 July. Employed by Cooper Engineering Co. Pty Ltd in Melbourne, Burrows joined the Militia in 1921 and was posted to the 14th Battalion. On 23 March 1922 at St George's Presbyterian Church, East St Kilda, he married Isabel Christina Mathieson (d. 1963). After his firm sent him to Sydney in 1934 as sales manager, he transferred to the 36th Battalion; he was promoted lieutenant colonel and made commanding officer in August 1938.

  Appointed to the A.I.F. on 26 April 1940, Burrows was given command of the 2nd/13th Battalion and arrived in the Middle East in November.

  Thickset, with 'rather pugilistic features', tall, erect and alert, he exuded 'a powerful air of authority and confidence'. His resonant voice earned him the nickname, 'the Bull'.

  At Er Regima, Libya, in April 1941 he checked the advance of a superior German force and extricated his battered battalion. In the withdrawal to Tobruk and throughout its defence he was an aggressive commander. During the Sidi Rezegh battles his night-attack on Ed Duda on 30 November was an outstanding success. A serious head-wound next day caused him to be invalided home.

  Mentioned in dispatches, Burrows was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the Polish Krzyz Walecznych (Cross of Valour). He had made an indelible impression on his troops. Their admiration was epitomoized by one soldier who composed a song Bull Burrows'Bomb-Happy Boys, and later wrote of him:

    For we all know a man when we see one,
    And we know that you've well earned your rest.

  Promoted temporary brigadier in May 1942, Burrows commanded the 1st Infantry Brigade in New South Wales. His wound prevented him from returning to the field and he was placed on the Retired List on 28 July 1945. He resumed his civilian job and in 1946 opened an Adelaide branch of Cooper's (subsequently Sunbeam Corporation Ltd) which prospered under his management. Burrows was a member (1952-55) of the Repatriation Board for South Australia. He retired in 1959, devoted himself to the interests of ex-servicemen, and enjoyed golf, bowls, gardening and philately. On 27 November 1964 at the Methodist Church, Tusmore, he married a widow Thelma Villis, née Matthew, late Cox.

  He died on 23 May 1973 in the Repatriation General Hospital, Daw Park, and was cremated; his wife survived him, as did the son and daughter of his first marriage.

G. H. Fearnside (ed), Bayonets Abroad (Syd, 1953); B. Maughan, Tobruk and El Alamein (Canb, 1966); AWM records; information from Mrs Y. Crompton, Marryatville, Adel, Mr F. B. Burrows Beaumaris, Melb, and Mr K. J. Hall, Mosman.

A.J.Hill

From Who's Who, 1950:

BURROWS, Brig. Frederick Alexander, D.S.O., M.C., M.M., E.D., Polish Mily. Cross; Mgr. Cooper Engineering Co. Ltd. (Adel.) since 1946; Cormd. 1 Aust. Inf. Bde. A.I.F. 1942-45; accountant and business mgr.: son of F. W. Burrows. Corowa, N.S.W.; b. Nov. 10, 1897, Corowa: ed. Corowa Pub. Sch. and Tech. Coll.; served 1914-18 priv. to lieut.; comrnnd. 2/13 Bn. 2nd A.I.F.; won D.S.O. at Tobruk when as Bn Commdr. led successful counter-attack; m. Mar. 23, 1922, Isobel C., d. W. J. Mathieson, Caulfield. Melb., 1 s_ 1 d.; address. 8 Jenkins Ave., Myrtle Bank, S.A.

Australian War Memorial First World War Nominal Roll

The last entry on this (truncated) list is for Lieutenant Burrows MM of the 7th Battalion who joined the AIF on the 4th April 1915 and Returned-To-Australia on the 28th March 1919

The Australian 9th Division, supported by British artillery and provisioned by sea,   held Tobruk against superior German forces for 6 months.  The Australians, apart from the 2nd/43rd were relieved on the 2nd of October by the Polish Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade (Samodzielna Brygada Strzelców Karpackich - SBSK).  The 2nd/43rd, commanded by Col. Frederick Burrows stayed in Tobruk until the 17th of October under the command of General Kopanski commander of the SBSK.

Some background information - from the Australian War Memorial (AWM) and a Polish war history site.

TOBRUK
AWM File of Research 581 24 April 1958

Tobruk, like Gallipoli, is a name that means much in the war annals of Australia. A parallel can also be drawn between Tobruk and Milne Bay. At Milne Bay the hitherto invincible Japanese suffered his first defeat - at Tobruk the all-conquering German forces received their first set-back - in each case at the hands of Australians.

January, 1941, saw the British forces, with the Australian 6th Division in the fore, sweep the Italians from the Western Desert all the way to Benghazi and beyond. An extended supply line and the committal of British forces, (including the 6th Division) to honour our pledge to Greece, made our position precarious and with the arrival of General Rommel and his Afrika Corps on the scene it was now our turn to retreat.

The 6th Australian Division was relieved by the newly-formed 9th Australian Division under Major-General L.J. Morshead on the 8th of March, 1941, and their role of garrisoning the Western Desert soon changed when Rommel launched his counter-attack. In the face of superior armour, something the British forces lamentably lacked, retreat was inevitable. The Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Archibald Wavell, decided however, that Tobruk must be held for, as he said when he handed over the Cyrenaican Command to General Lavarack, "There is nothing between you and Cairo".

Tobruk's strength as a fortress lay in the fact that for an attacker there was no cover around the perimeter as the area is an almost perfectly flat plateau. With the harbour as the heart of the fortress, the defences built to protect it ran in a rough semicircle across the desert from the coast eight miles east of the harbour to the coast again nine miles west of it. The defences had been hewn from the desert and consisted mainly of dozens of strongpoints. These posts were protected by barbed-wire fences and anti-tank ditches. Supplemented by captured Italian weapons the strength of the garrison lay in its fire-power, and the extensive use of minefields offset to some extent the weakness in infantry.

This was the position when the Germans launched their ill-fated attack on April 13th, 1941. Known as the "Easter Battle", the Germans had confidently expected a walk-over - instead it had ended in their being completely routed. The spirit of co-operation, trust and comradeship between the men of the garrison, consisting of two thirds Australian and one third British, was the real strength of Tobruk. No other Middle East front saw understanding between the men of these countries so complete.

On Easter Sunday the enemy made his attack with infantry action against the perimeter. The vigorousness of his attack was matched however by the vigour of our defence, and his success in this phase was very limited.

On the morning of Easter Monday the Germans launched their attack by tanks. The familiar pattern employed by these "Blitzkrieg" experts was to have the tanks break through the defences - a deep armoured thrust - and through the gap would pour the infantry. In Poland, France and Belgium these tactics had never failed. Once the tanks had broken through it had always been the beginning of the end and the rolling up of the defences had been a matter of course - until Tobruk.

Here the enemy's tanks did not so much break through as they were let through. The Australians lay low until the German infantry appeared in the wake of the tanks. These were engaged by our fire with the result the tanks were left to advance without the support they had expected, and the further they advanced the more intense became the fire they encountered. For there was the secret of our defence - a defence in depth. The combined force of our artillery and tanks lay waiting for them. They were hit with every calibre weapon at our command capable of damaging them. The fire of our 25-pounders at point-blank range was particularly devastating. As the enemy armour in retreat poured through the gap they had made in our lines, they came under the fire of Brens, mortars, rifles and shells and terrible confusion resulted.

Thus ended the Afrika Corps' first attempt to capture the garrison. Tobruk was a nut they could not crack and further attempts such as the Battle of the Salient in April-May had little more success. While Rommel gained a small amount of territory with his far superior forces, the men of the Fortress inflicted such heavy casualties he did not seriously attack Tobruk again in 1941. Under the inspired leadership of General Morshead the actual defensive task of holding Tobruk was, in reality, held by offensive tactics.

This then was the pattern of Tobruk. A thorn in the side of the German army, upsetting his plans for an attack on Egypt, and giving us time to build up our forces for a counter offensive.

For over six months Australians had defied and denied him possession of the area, and although they were evacuated by sea in October for a "rest", having been relieved by the Polish Carpathian Brigade, one battalion, the 2/13th remained to fight its way out and join up with the advancing British Eighth Army on the second advance westwards.

The heroic defence of Tobruk is a notable military achievement and a worthy addition to the long list of deeds of valour performed by Australian soldiers. At the unveiling of the Memorial in the Tobruk War Cemetery, the late Chester Wilmot, in a description of the ceremony, concluded by saying "Their real monument is their name and their most honoured resting place is in the grateful hearts of their fellow men".

http://www.kki.krakow.pl/piojar/brygad/brygad/tobruk/tobruk_e.html

Three of Polish Battalions which were defending the part of line as long as 20 km were supported . Gen. Kopanski received two additional Battalions - Australian 2nd Battalion (commander col. Fredrick Burrows) and Chechoslovakian 11th Battalion (commander Col. Karel Klapalek).

Line positions, observing the enemy. (AWM 041790)

In the first phases of the siege the Australian garrison, concerned primarily with testing its strength, concentrated on defence. But as the troops proved their ability to repel thrust upon thrust by Germans and Italians, defence gave way to fierce aggression as the world's most daring patrol fighters went into action each night.

Tobruk patrols were of two types - fighting and reconnaissance. The job of the reconnaissance patrol was to gather information and, if possible, to secure prisoners for identification. Its members used all their bushcraft to avoid being discovered. Like stealthy shadows, they saw without being seen. But the fighting patrol went out to fight. Its aim was to do as much damage and to kill as many of the enemy as possible. Its members would creep up on an enemy post, surround it and then, at a given signal, rush in with the bayonet and kill-soundlessly. A few brief minutes of bloody, sinew-straining work and the foray would be over, with not a shot fired.

So persistent and so deadly were the Australian night patrols that the enemy, living in the perpetual shadow of silent, stealthy death, was soon reduced to a state of almost panicky nervousness. On the slightest provocation, and often on no provocation at all, he would put down artillery and mortar barrages.

Two typical examples of AIF offensive patrols are quoted. In the first, the raiders crawled in single file for two miles through a minefield to attack an observation post, the position of which had been revealed by reconnaissance patrols on the previous day.

http://2ndww.tripod.com/Africa/tobruk.htm

  The Poles to land on Tobruk beaches had found there the soldiers, with whom they quickly found a common language - the Australians. Their division was comprised almost entirely of volunteers; the British Imperial Forces had never seen another unit with such a high percentage of enlisted men with college education and university degrees. Bohemians, vagabonds, and con artists - they had a very peculiar concept of the military drill and discipline. Even to the point that the British command considered isolation of the Australians from other Allied troops to avoid demoralization of the latter. They also were sceptical about the Australians' combat worthiness. Of course, they came from the country of the harsh, hot climate, but that cannot substitute years of garrison service in the desert, and bring the experience of the British soldiers, who gave Graziani's great army such a nice whipping. Nevertheless, the Australians proved fine soldiers beyond expectations. Those were the Australians, who during the first Wavell's offensive took Tobruk within two days. And those were the Australians, who frustrated Rommel's armoured assault on the fortress. Relentless in attack, and flexible in defence they had demonstrated extraordinary courage, inventiveness, and entrepreneurial spirit. Under the pressure of prevailing enemy they would disperse and apply guerrilla tactics, fighting in small groups without substantial casualties.

Honours & Awards (Gazetted)

Source: Australian War Memorial Database